The present invention relates to a tape recorder for recording information on a magnetic tape or reproducing information from a magnetic tape by transferring a designated cassette half via a cassette transfer device between a housing which houses a plurality of cassette halves and a tape running device. As used herein the term cassette half refers to a cassette of the type having a single reel, as opposed to both supply and take-up reels included in a full cassette.
In a prior art tape recorder of the above type the remaining time (the time corresponding to the unrecorded portion of the magnetic tape) of the magnetic tape accommodated in the cassette half computed according to a known method is displayed in a display. Accordingly, the remaining time of a cassette half under recording or reproducing can be confirmed by visually recognizing the display corresponding to the cassette half.
However prior art tape recorders are constructed so that the remaining time displayed in the display is cleared when a cassette half is transferred out of the tape running device to the housing by means of the transfer device. Therefore, it is possible to recognize the remaining time of only those cassette halves that are in the tape running device.
Therefore when making a recording of information with a predetermine recording length (for example music) on a magnetic tape of one of the cassette halves housed in the housing, it may not be possible to determine which cassette has a remaining time longer than the predetermined recording length, even after carrying out recording or reproducing for all of the cassette halves. Hence, it becomes necessary to reexamine the remaining time of all of the cassette halves in succession, with the result that it takes a long time to select a cassette half with a desired amount of remaining time.
A tape recorder has been known which has a display which displays the counter values for the running time and the distance covered on a magnetic tape accommodated in a cassette half. This occurs when recording information on a magnetic tape or reproducing information from a magnetic tape accommodated in a cassette half which has been transferred from the housing to the tape running device by means of the cassette transfer device. In such a tape recorder, the counter values of a cassette half under recording or reproduction can be confirmed by visually checking the display.
However such a tape recorder is constructed in such a way that, when a cassette half is transferred from the tape running device to the housing by means of the transfer device, the counter values of the cassette half which have been displayed in the display are cleared. Consequently it is only possible to know the counter value of the cassette half which is presently contained in the tape running device.
Therefore, to listen to a desired music selection, for example, by setting the magnetic tape of a certain cassette half at a predetermined position, it becomes necessary to run the magnetic tape to the desired position after rewinding the magnetic tape to the beginning of the tape since the counter values are unavailable. For this reason, a problem has been that it takes a long time to set the magnetic tape at a desired position.